Horrendous reports from Macomia – MediaFax

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Horrendous reports from Macomia – MediaFax

5:09 CAT | 03 Jun 2020

Photo courtesy: Pinnacle News

Thursday, Friday and Saturday – essentially, three days of occupation.

It is estimated that the insurgents numbered between 100 and 120 elements. They burst into the neighbourhoods of the village of Macomia in three groups, with Nanga A and Nanga B the main points of entry.

According to reports from people who managed to take refuge in the forest and survive extreme conditions for three nights and three days, the Defence and Security Forces (FDS), having wrongly calculated the numbers and equipment of the group, felt obliged to retreat.

The retreat only happened after intense fighting, with the hope of protecting the few locals still in the town after most of them had taken refuge in the surrounding bush.

It was in such circumstances that the group settled in the town and began its wave of destruction.

Dyck Advisory Group helicopters supporting the Defence and Security Forces could do little, not least because of the inadvisability of shelling a town with part of its population still there. Nor could progress be made in the destruction of the town’s public and private infrastructure, where the insurgents were hiding.

This is the reality the town faced throughout Thursday, Friday and part of Saturday. The FDS continued its attempts to retake to the town, always hampered by the local population being used as the insurgents’ main shield.

With their departure on Saturday and the return of the people to their neighbourhoods, reports and descriptions of the true scale of the horror began to emerge.

17 dead

By the end of Sunday afternoon, communities has discovered a total of 17 bodies, all ordinary citizens.

According to a trader living in Nanga A, who returned to the forest to sleep on Sunday night for fear of further attacks, eight dead bodies were found in his neighbourhood alone.

Another victim was a child he knew who died of hunger in the forest, because “she would not chew the manioc, which was the main food during the days we were hiding”.

Among the dead were those beheaded and those shot dead. By Sunday evening, six bodies had been buried, the trader recounted. It was not possible to complete the burial of the other the two other bodies, because the people were tired and, with the night, fear also came upon them.

Many of the dead, he said, would have been unable to tell anyone anything about Islam, while others, be believed, were perhaps alcoholics who had come out of hiding and returned to the neighbourhoods.

Meanwhile, a tailor residing in Nanga B said that, up until 3:00 p.m. on Sunday, he knew for sure that five people had been killed in the neighbourhood, and that a further three neighbourhood children had lost their lives in hiding from Hunger and thirst.

Prisoners, one source said, were released from the district penitentiary and used to load loot into various vehicles before on Saturday afternoon, the insurgents left for Miangalewa and from there to their base in the region’s lowlands.

Local residents believe the next few days will disclose more casualties, and indeed, those returning are so far only carrying out damage assessment, and return to the woods at night.

Asked about the death toll among insurgents and the FDS, one source said there were casualties on both sides, and that military vehicles were seen on Sunday carrying bodies in military uniforms, though whether they were FDS soldiers or insurgents he was unable to say.

He further reasoned that, since they had remained in the village for three days, it was likely that members of the group killed in the confrontations would have been buried by the insurgents themselves before leaving on Saturday.

In addition to looting various goods and burning and destroying numerous homes, the insurgents totally or partially destroyed the Movitel and Vodacom stores, Loja do Suqui, Pensão MM, the penitentiary, the M Town Central market, the health centre, the Sheik Sujai Aifa mosque, SDEJT, the Macomia Complete Primary School and the WFP office.

Source: MedaFax